


The Little Things

by Kikithehousemoose



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: #i gUESS war machine was actually in war?? i really do not know SHIT about his character, #idk if you want it to be rhodey then its rhodey, brief nightmares about war, but i didnt wanna include rhodey cause he was a pilot???, mentions of riots starvation and poverty, secondary characters pietro steve and war machine, secondary natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 21:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3911134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikithehousemoose/pseuds/Kikithehousemoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it was important to appreciate the little things in life. Sometimes it was the little things that hurt the most. For Wanda, it hurt all the time, and the one thing she came to appreciate was that she still wasn't alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> {{ Hello! Sorry if this is bad or incoherent or something. I decided that my very first posting on here should be at 3/4-something in the morning.
> 
> Also, I'm going to try and leave certain childhood specifics as vague as possible, because I know almost nothing about Jewish or Romani traditions/language/culture and don't want to go into too good of detail until I have a decent knowledge of it. 
> 
> But um, yeah! Enjoy! If I can keep my muse up after this, this will be the first of many Maximoff fics.
> 
> ((Okay this is really just a collection of drabbles but you get what I mean)) }}

Wanda had always paid close attention to details, having been trained to scan people's minds for anything that she could use against them. It helped her in battle, because she had a sense for where each enemy was coming from, and where they would end up if she merely evaded them. It had helped during the evacuation, being able to tell if certain buildings were about to fall or which people to make go faster or force assistance on. But otherwise she didn't bother to put effort into noticing details in everyday life, because normally it wasn't worth it-- normally, she had something, some _one_ , who took up all of her attention.

Now, she had no twin to reach out to, and Wanda was left to focus on the little things.

~  
There was so much food. 

When she was very little, they would have food, a whole table of it, lit up with candles and made beautiful by the steam. She remembered feeling fat at the end of a meal, and someone poking her with a grin, teasing her about how she was going to be a fat little cat.   
Then the war came, and no one had much food. Every child either became a beggar or a thief or did what they could to work for meals. There were packed orphanages who struggled to even provide three bowls of soup and bread a day; there were farmers who felt threatened by the crowds that came offering to work in their fields for a share of the crop. Everyone was constantly hungry, and there was only so much that could be done about it.   
Nonetheless, Wanda had never starved. She had been hungry-- she had been _so_ hungry, it had felt like her insides were eating themselves, and she would become weak-- but Pietro had made sure that she was never, ever starving. If they got food, she had it first, or had the biggest portion. She had tried to protest, tried to force it back to him, but he insisted. In return, she always gave him the clean water-- he had a knack for dehydration, and she couldn't stand to see him pass out again. 

But America was far from Sokovia, and the difference that seemed the biggest deal to her was that there was so. much. food. 

When she'd had her first lunch, she was still raw, and everything was so new to her. There were countless dishes that she could have chosen from, but the words had lost meaning to her, and so she ordered what she thought was fish. She was wrong; it was chicken. Chicken chunks in some phlegm-like gravy with white balls of what must have once been bread. Under any other condition she might have thought it was disgusting, but it was the first dish she'd had since her girlhood that had actually filled her up. Her eyes widened and she seemed almost dazed as she looked around, nervous to ask for more. She didn't think she actually _needed_ more, but it felt so good, she felt so _healthy_ that she couldn't stop herself. 

Captain Rogers watched her as she went to clean her own dishes, something that she was doing more than out of courtesy, and as she went about the task she found herself slipping in to see what he was thinking.  
He was remembering nights in bed when he was young, being fed chicken broth by a tired but caring hand.   
He was remembering the rations the soldiers were given, how disgusting they were at first but how they learned to appreciate any kind of sustenance, of sense of home.  
He was remembering how he had almost accidentally starved himself when first on the serum, because he didn't want to hog all the food to himself, not yet realizing that he actually needed that much food now that he had such a high metabolism.  
He remembered what it was like to be taken aback by how much food was so easily available, and he felt empathy towards Wanda. She backed out of his mind with the most microscopic of smiles, finding some comfort in knowing that he understood and wasn't judging her for being a fat little cat.

~  
The beds were so soft. Almost too soft. 

It wasn't a trait they had necessarily flaunted, but they had been able to sleep anywhere. Rocky ground, the thatched roof of a house, metal beams, you name it. The beds in their cells were nice compared to what they could have been given, but they were always old mattresses, no matter how many times either of the twins torn theirs up. Wanda couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had a good, _soft_ bed. 

For the first few nights, she slept on the floor, underneath her blankets. It took her some time to work up to the bed, because it was so comfortable that it felt uncomfortable. She wasn't used to a non-living cushion.

~  
Wanda slept, but not easily, and not regularly.

It took her forever to get to sleep when she tried-- yes she was tired, but her mind buzzed, only keeping itself on one plane, desperately reaching out to find the other layer of itself that held the better dreams and only finding others that were as bad as hers. Often, she would have to look into one, only to try and back off at the last minute, just before she slipped into consciousness, so that neither of them saw the others nightmares.

It hardly worked. She would be in a scene of hot sand and pungent odors, of half-blown away faces and the strain of exhausted muscle. The soldier in the other room would be trapped in fragments of explosions, of the claustrophobia of being under rubble, of stray bullets cascading through a rioting crowd. They would both wake up fitful, restless, and go to clear their heads. Only, the soldier thought that it was just another repressed memory coming to surface, and the young woman would know that it was not. She was careful to avoid him on these nights, so that he would not have an inkling of suspicion. 

But he did. Everyone did. And it was only a few days after everyone officially figured out why they'd been having strange dreams when they altogether stopped, and were mentioned no more. 

For all those nights on, Wanda's mind had reached out for steadiness, and had found it.

~  
There was so much noise, all the time.

The noise wasn't always loud. It could be a kettle boiling, or the TV on, or a stream of quiet curses muttered in someones mind. It wasn't that Wanda couldn't _handle_ noise, she could just usually tune it out if she wanted to. Technically, she still could-- there was so much to explore here. But part of her was afraid to try and focus on one thing, or one person. Her own mind kept whispering to her that they still didn't trust her, and that poking around looking at things was going to make them trust her even less. She could tell that they made an effort to include her along with the rest of the new team, but getting involved in group things only made the noise worse, and even after she left she could still hear the deafening chatter of their minds in her ears, still be caught in multiple perspectives of the exact same scene. It would have been enough to drive her mad.

She would go to her room and bury her head underneath her pillows. She would try to hum to herself or focus on something else but her head tingled with the social madness their loud heads had left behind. She closed her eyes tight and reached out blindly, knowing that even if she got what she wanted she would be met with a buzz, with thoughts and pictures going a thousand miles a minute--- 

What she got was a mute button and a change of channel. All at once the conversation stopped, and she was instead met with familiar, fascinating dreamscapes... entire planets made of magnificent crystals, the sound and sensation of rain, a timelapse of sunlight over wildnerness compared to a city, compared to an ocean, compared to a cave. Such simple things, yet such profound things, like a never-ending stream of numbers or the soundwave patterns of synthesized music. Wanda relaxed herself into it, and was able to sleep, falling away from the bustle of unnessesary noise.

~  
When Wanda fought, she occasionally felt like she belonged.

There were some exercises that the team would have failed without her. There were times when she made a mistake, got distracted for one moment, but it was barely mentioned,other than a pat on the shoulder and an encouraging smile. 

Someone mentioned that both she and Black Widow (no, Natasha, she said it was okay to call her Natasha) both fought like they were dancing, only it was a different kind of style. At first Wanda hadn't believed them, but when she watched Natasha train, or when it was her turn to take on the assassin, she could start to tell. It felt.. good, in a way. She felt like it was another little thing that she and the Russian had in common, even if they didn't talk about it. Natasha was one of the only ones that Wanda respected enough to make a conscious effort to stay out of her head, and in turn Natasha treated her with legitimate friendship and concern, with just enough of a prickle of discomfort that Wanda knew she was being genuine. 

When Wanda fought, she felt like she had friends, and though it surprised her, she wasn't about to argue.

~  
There had always been a warm body touching her.

They were never separated in their minds, and they would always have their past and genetics to link them. But they were not always kept together physically, and whenever they were, they were almost always touching.  
They had still been close as very young children, but it was during those days under the rubble, clutching on to each others quivering body that they swore to never let go. 

Pietro had always been there, right behind or beside her, always ready to reach out a hand in anticipation of her needing it, or always moving his whole body to be facing her just to find reassurance. She knew every trace and curve of his hand, his arm, and almost all of his body.. she knew the warmth of his form, and the exciting speed of his mind, and he had always been there whenever she needed to zoom away from everything else in the world. He had always been there to remind her to hold steady.

Now he wasn't, and she found herself constantly longing for a touch that wasn't there.

At night, she would reach out, and not find his mind. She would go to glance at her brother, to communicate some unspoken thought, and be left staring at empty space, or at a stranger that was very much not her Quicksilver. She would catch herself reaching out to meet his hand only to curl her fingers around nothing and have them clench into a fist before falling.

To make up for this, Wanda tried touching herself. She tried holding her own hands, putting a hand to rub her own shoulder, glancing at her reflection to allow her own thought to be heard by no one... but it wasn't enough. No matter how feelsy Wanda got with herself, she could always tell it was her hand, and it was just not the same. Nothing, _nothing_ would ever be satisfactory.

She went to put a hand up to massage her shoulder, only to find a hand already there. It was not quite warm, but was steady, and as gentle as could be. Wanda lowered her hand and did not dare to look with her eyes, instead eventually curiously reaching out with her mind.

She was met with the flight pattern of butterflies, the sparkling of stars reflected in a pool, and the fall of wavy locks of brown hair. She was calm.

~  
Freedom was such a foreign word to Wanda, but oh so familiar.

She had chanted it when she was in the mobs of Sokovian people. She had seen it on American propaganda, her stomach twisting in disgust. She had heard stories of those who were free, but never thought she would know it herself.

It was only when she literally walked out of HQ and felt the wind against her that she realized she was free. Thor had left, Tony Stark had left, Clint had gone back home and Bruce was not spoken of but constantly considered. Technically, there was nothing keeping her there-- if she wished to pursue some agenda of her own, she would have been free to. Constantly monitored, but mostly uninterrupted. The thing was, she had literally nowhere else to go. There was nothing for her now back in Sokovia, and the rest of the world would not have wanted her. This had become her only home now, and though Wanda was free to leave it, she wasn't sure that she wanted to.

There was a soft thud of landing behind her, an unnessecary measure to make sure he didn't startle her. Knowing who it was, Wanda turned, looking into his eyes and taking his offered hand.

"Are you making plans to leave?" Vision asked innocently.

"No." Wanda insisted after a moment. "No. I have no reason but to stay."

Vision nodded, and added after another moment, "It would not be the same if you were gone."

Wanda closed her eyes and did not have to imagine that the chest she put her face to was Pietro's.

"I know."


End file.
